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Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Students in Tyler Thornburg's class interview an immigrant about her journey to the U.S.

Eighth grade students at Saints Peter
and Paul Catholic School in Tulsa, Oklahoma spent the last month of the school
year working on a podcast project to enrich the immigration theme of the school
year. While many students at the school come from immigrant families, not many
of them had heard their families’ stories about how they came to the United States.
Teacher Tyler Thornburg seized an opportunity for authentic learning and
engagement.

The idea to
develop student-created podcasts on the immigrant
experience arose after listening to a “This American Life” podcast on National
Public Radio about an immigrant named Abdi,
a Somali refugee, and his epic journey to the United States. Thornburg wanted his
students to create something like this podcast, which they could then share
with their families. He was hoping for students to tell the story of their
family’s journey to the United States (or someone else’s they knew) and then
ask the people they were interviewing if the sacrifices they made were worth
it.

Many of the
conclusions reached by the immigrants interviewed surprised students and helped
them to develop a fuller understanding of immigrants and immigration.
Thornburg’s students had often only experienced the difficulty of living in the
United States and thought that life in Mexico or a country in Africa had to be
better than here. However, many of the people interviewed said they would not
go back if they could because of the impact that their decision has had on their
children and grandchildren. These answers forced students to look at their life
and the immigrant experience from a larger perspective and to see that small
decisions over a lifetime can have a profound impact.

Practice and Patience

As is often
the case, new experiments in the classroom don’t always go as planned, but they
offer rich learning experiences for teachers and students. Thornburg said:

Our
eighth grade class was behind on our curriculum for the year, so we worked on the
podcast at the same time as finishing the school year. If I were to do the
project over again, I would only focus on the podcast project and not do any
other content. The way the lesson plan is written is how I decided to do
things, and some of the things we did, did not take an entire day, while other
things took more than one day, and other tasks were somewhere in between. I
tried to write the lesson with some flexibility so teachers could use their own
creativity to make any and every change.

Reflecting on
the project, Thornburg offered some words of advice for teachers wanting to
create podcasts with students, primarily regarding practice and patience:

Practice
is something both students and teachers need. Create a podcast yourself for students to listen to so you are
prepared to show students how to use the software and hardware. There isn’t a more frustrating moment as a teacher
when students ask you how to
do something and you don’t know what they are talking about because you haven’t done it yourself. It’s also
important to have your students practice. My students needed a lot of practice and probably could have used more when they were creatingtheir podcasts.

The
two areas that students needed the most practice is recording and editing. The
recording is picked up much faster than the editing, and this is where patience
comes in. Plan more time than you think to allow students to practice. You will
thank yourself later. The thing that I needed to realize is that for many of my
students this was the first time they had ever created a podcast and edited
audio. They know what the final product is supposed to sound like, so I advise letting
them discover how to get there. This forces the teacher to allow the students
some autonomy, which can be scary, but they will rise to it if you give them
enough encouragement and support.

Lastly,
and this was the most difficult thing for me teaching six preps, is that feedback
is essential for students. Students need to know what you are expecting of them
and where they can improve. I was surprised at how much they wanted to edit and
change things when I gave them feedback. The stories that arose as a result of
this project were amazing and the interaction of students with immigrants and
technology was incredibly inspiring to watch as their teacher.

Resources

Click
on the link to download student-created podcasts to Music Player for Google
Drive or your computer's audio device. These podcasts can serve as exemplars
for project-based learning.

Thursday, July 14, 2016

The Teach
Immigration Project has selected three student ambassadors to intern this
summer at Long Island-based non-profits that works on immigration issues. The intern experience will foster the
students' interest in community and civic engagement and acquaint them with
community needs and resources. The
students will interact with community leaders and decision makers. They will develop leadership skills, have the
opportunity to share their experiences with the community at future events, and
will present at a student forum in the fall.

Meet this
year’s student ambassadors:

William Ban, 17, is an active member of his school,
Great Neck South High School, and community. He is the Grand Prize recipient of
the Shanti Fund “Youth for Peace” competition, the President’s Volunteer
Service Award for over 150 service hours in a year, and a 2015 Deca Nationals
Stock Market Game Finalist, placing second out of 1300 regional volunteers. He
is an avid skit and song performer on independence movements and world peace
and has served as a MC for several community events.

When asked
about why he believes immigration is important to the future of Long Island,
Ban responded, “when our community becomes more diversified, we gain new ideas,
cultures, and perspectives.” He added that it is a civic duty to “integrate
immigrants to the Long Island community and discourage racial biases or feelings
of hateful nativism.”

Shafaq Khan, 16, is a volunteer and leader in her
school, Sewanhaka High School, and community. She is the President of her
school’s Key Club, a nationwide community service organization, raising
awareness and funds for other organizations, including the Make-a-Wish
Foundation and UNICEF. She teaches Model UN debate skills to elementary
students and organizes elementary and high school level Model UN conferences.
She also tutors ELL students, writes for her school newspaper, and is a member
of the National Honor Society.

Khan writes,
“immigrants help broaden perspectives regarding race, ethnicity, religion, and
culture.” Citing Justice Sonia Sotomayor as one of her role models, Khan hopes
to become a lawyer or judge, specifically addressing immigration, religious tolerance,
women’s rights, and racial profiling.

Zairel Luna, 16, is a student at Centereach High
School, where she holds several leadership positions including serving as
Sophomore Class President, Black History Month and Women’s History Month
Committee Coordinators, and as a member of honor societies including the Music
Honors Society, the Italian Honors Society, and as an Honor Student.

Luna wrote in
her application that she believes “the future of Long Island is in the hands of
Millenials” and that she has worked hard to encourage the voices of her peers
to be heard on immigration and other issues they feel strongly about.